


Something No One's Even Tried

by Rehearsal_Dweller



Series: did they bust up your brains or something? [1]
Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:13:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23100763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rehearsal_Dweller/pseuds/Rehearsal_Dweller
Summary: “But if I know anything about Davey Jacobs, it’s that right now he’s desperate for there to have been a reason beside the money. I know I was.”“Davey ain’t you, Kath."“Davey ain’t stupid, either."
Relationships: David Jacobs & Jack Kelly, Jack Kelly & Katherine Plumber Pulitzer
Series: did they bust up your brains or something? [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1673425
Comments: 10
Kudos: 100





	Something No One's Even Tried

**Author's Note:**

> hi I know I'm late to this party but I just watched Newsies for the first (and second. and third.) time recently after seeing Kara Lindsay at Epcot during the art festival and I am in LOVE
> 
> I also realized that in the stage show there's no scene between Jack's betrayal at the rally and Once and For All for Davey, even though SOMEBODY had to talk to him to get him on board with the plan. And so, fic.  
> More to come (maybe?? we'll see).
> 
> This pulls a little shippy but doesn't need to be read that way, I'm just weak for how much communication Jack and Davey do just by saying each other's names.

Jack leads the way down, having figured the gentlemanly thing to do would be to put himself between Katherine and the ground in case she slipped. Although, given the way her skirt keeps catching on the breeze above his head, maybe he’d figured wrong. She never said one way or another. She does let him put his hands on her waist to support her as she jumps the last few feet where the ladder doesn’t quite reach the ground. Once she’s landed, he steps back, shoving his hands back into his pockets.

“Now what?” he asks, rocking back on his heels. “We can’t exactly put together this grand plan’a yours on our own.”

“Now we tell Davey,” Katherine replies, in a tone that suggests that this was the most obvious thing in the world. “Once he’s on board, we can - Jack?”

Jack tries to cover his sharp intake of breath by biting down hard on the inside of his lip, balling up his fists in his pockets, and shaking his head with eyebrows raised. He’s going for a _what, I didn’t say anything_ look, which is met with a slightly concerned frown.

“Jack?” she repeats, a small crease forming between her eyebrows. “Are you alright?”

“Of course I –“ he stops and looks away, somewhere over her shoulder. “Davey. He won’t wanna see me.”

Distantly, he can see Katherine’s frown deepening. “If you just tell him why you –“

“You didn’t see him, Kath,” Jack says. “I think I broke somethin’ for good. You should – you should go talk to him without me.”

“Oh, no, that’s not going to happen,” Katherine replies.

“Why?”

“Well, one, I’m a girl.” She catches her skirt with one hand and swishes it at him. “I can’t go calling on him alone this late at night. What _would_ his parents think?” A small smile betrays her little joke where her tone hadn’t. “But seriously, I’ll have my own people to rally – we’ll need all the help we can get. And, oh, I don’t know – maybe because _you need to apologize to him.”_

“Katherine –“

“Mmm. Nope,” Katherine interrupts, pressing a finger to his lips. “You’re going to march yourself down to the Jacobs’ residence, knock on their door, and explain yourself.”

Jack pulls her arm away from his face, stepping back. “It ain’t that easy. He ain’t never gonna trust me again.”

“You broke his - his trust,” Katherine says, her expression softening. “But if I know anything about Davey Jacobs, it’s that right now he’s desperate for there to have been a reason beside the money. I know I was.”

“Davey ain’t you, Kath,” Jack says, pulling his hat off his head and balling it up in his fist while he runs the fingers of his other hand through his hair.

“Davey ain’t stupid, either,” Katherine replies. “He cares about you, and he knows how much this strike means to you. He’ll listen.”

“I dunno about this.” 

Katherine puts her hand on his cheek, pulling him down so she can kiss the other one gently. “Well I do. You’re going.”

Which is how Jack ended up tapping gently on the Jacobs’ door half an hour later. It’s luck, pure luck, that Les is the one who answers, instead of their parents or their sister. “Whadda _you_ want?”

“Davey around?” Jack asks, fingernails of the hand in his pocket digging into the meat of his palm. 

“He don’t wanna talk,” Les says, frowning. “Not t’me, or Mama, or anybody. _Definitely_ not you.”

“C’mon, kid, help me out,” Jack pleads. “I’m sorry about what happened at the rally, I - we’re gonna make it right, a’right? But I need Davey to - I need Davey.”

Les crosses his arms, still glaring up at him. “So, what, you’re on our side again?”

“I never wasn’t,” Jack says unconvincingly. “Things jus’ got… complicated.”

“He’s real upset,” says Les.

“And he aught’ta be. M’here to apologize, Lessy.”

Jack doesn’t know what it is that cuts through to Les – the nickname, the look in his eye, the slightly desperate edge to his voice – but the next thing he knows Les has grabbed his hand and pulled him into the apartment. He drags Jack to another closed door and bangs on it.

“Da _vey_ , Mama says I have to go to bed,” Les says, innocent as ever. Jack can’t help but be distantly impressed with how good a liar this kid really is, through the haze of his own nerves and guilt.

The door opens. Davey stands in the gap, eyes red and shoulders tense. When his eyes fall on Jack, he tries to close the door again, but Jack – for once – has his wits about him enough to catch it with an open hand.

“Davey,” he says, and _fuck,_ if that isn’t the most pathetic sound he’d ever made in his goddamned life he doesn’t know what is.

Davey’s whole posture changes at the sound of his name. He almost seems to deflate, shoulders slumping and eyes falling closed. He lets out a sharp breath through his nose, and it looks like he might be biting down on the inside of his lip. “Fine.”

And then the door is open wide enough for Jack to come in. Les stayed put, waving him inside on his own. Davey sits heavily on the bed. He stares up at Jack, eyes wide, and waits.

“Davey,” Jack says again.

“Jackie,” Davey replies, and he sounded so _tired_. And Jack just crumples, falling to his knees on the floor facing Davey where he’s perched on the mattress. It was easy – easier – to face this when it was just an idea, a concept, when he had Katherine in front of him who was on their side but not _on_ their side, who hadn’t been his partner in all this, who he hadn’t betrayed for her own good and the good of all their friends. But Davey – Davey is all of those things, Davey had stood next to him at the rally as he went back on everything he’d ever said he cared about, and now Davey is sitting in front of him with no fight left in him and looking like he’d been crying.

God, if he’d been crying –

“Davey,” Jack starts again, trying to pull himself back into the present. He’s said Davey’s name so many times, he’s meant so many things by it, and suddenly it’s the only thing he can say even though his head is screaming _I’m sorry, I was trying to protect you, I was scared, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry._

Davey, for his part, smiles weakly. “That how we’re doin’ this, then?”

“Look, I –“

“I don’t need an excuse, Jack,” Davey says. He says it and Jack believes him, even though his fingers are digging into the blanket underneath him, and he looks like he's chewing the inside of his lip again, because he doesn’t need a reason but he _is_ furious. “I know – I _know_ what that kinda money could do for you. What I _don’t_ know is why you thought it was a good idea to show your _fucking face_ in my house, and why Les thought _I_ needed to see it.”

His voice is low, tone so sharp that it cut right to Jack’s core. Davey is talker, and while Jack would be shocked to see him throw a punch if he weren’t punched first, he isn’t surprised to know he can still do his share of damage when he’s mad enough.

“I didn’t do it for the money,” replies Jack. He rocks back so he sits on his heels, but he doesn’t – can’t – look away from Davey.

“Then why, Jack?” Davey says, shaking his head. “What else could possibly be worth it to you?”

“You.” Jack squeezes his eyes shut tight. “You, and Les, and the others. Pulitzer made threats and I – I caved.”

“Jack,” Davey says in this quiet, broken voice, and he’s doing that _thing_. The way he can just look at Jack and say his name and somehow it means something, and somehow Jack knows exactly what it means. _I hear you. I get it. What now?_

“We’s got a plan – _Katherine’s_ got a plan, an’ I think it’s a good one,” Jack says slowly. He watches the rest of the tension fade out of Davey as he tells him Katherine’s idea, watches him lean closer and uncurl his fingers, his eyes getting big and a soft smile growing.

Jack has seen that look on David Jacobs before.

“Jackie _,”_ he says, and it means _I’m in._ _What do you need?_

“Davey,” Jack replies, and it means _thank god_. “The guys – you’s gotta be the one to talk to the guys. None’a them’ll believe a word I say anymore, and this ain’t something we can do alone.”

“Done,” says Davey. “When are we doin’ this?”

“Tonight.” Jack and Katherine decided before separating that this is an idea that needs to be enacted as quickly as possible, and if they _can_ do it tonight, they will. “Meet at the World at midnight. That gonna work?”

“I’ll be there,” Davey says. He stands before holding a hand out to Jack and pulling him to his feet.

“Thanks,” replies Jack. They move to leave – out the window onto the fire escape, rather than back out through the front door – and before they split up to find the rest of the Newsies and Katherine respectively, he catches Davey by the arm and turns him to meet his eye. They’re too close for Davey to avoid his gaze if he wanted to. “And David?”

“Yeah, Jack?”

“I’m sorry.”

Davey smiles, and it’s this weak sad thing but just sweetly hopeful enough that Jack doesn’t feel the weight of what he’s done crushing in as much anymore. “Yeah, Jackie. I know.”


End file.
